Chapter Two

"Why did you invite him?" Tony complained the next morning. He glowered at Nicholas J. Fury, who was sitting on his couch and staring at him expectantly.

"I'm sorry, are robot armies not under my job description?" Fury countered snidely.

"You guys keep saying robot armies," Steve remarked, shifting from one foot to another. "I thought that you were just talking about putting artificial intelligence in one robot. I don't know if we should be considering an army…"

"The power of the tesseract is strong. I do not think it wise to spread its powers on such a grand scale." Thor contributed.

"Hold on there, guys." Bruce interjected, holding up his hands with a small smile. "Nobody is building a robot army right now. Tony and I would just work on a prototype. We'd test it out for a few years before we'd expand the program."

"A few years, a few months…" Tony trailed off with a shrug. Bruce looked at him and shook his head sternly. Now was not the time to propose an accelerated Ultron program.

"But there would only be one?" Steve clarified firmly.

"There would only be one." Bruce confirmed.

"How are we monitoring Ultron in its early stages?" A quiet yet eager voice came from behind Thor. Thor stepped aside to reveal Jane Foster. She was grinning from ear to ear.

"I'm sorry, who invited you?" Tony questioned, his eyebrows furrowing.

"I did." Thor growled. "Once you spoke of working on the tesseract, I asked Jane Foster to assist you and Dr. Banner."

"That's actually not a bad idea. She has much more experience with these Asgardian stones than we do." Bruce remarked, hoping to avoid a conflict between Tony and Thor.

"She's an astrophysicist." Tony reminded Bruce in a disgusted tone.

"And you're an arms dealer. I guess we all have room for a hobby or two." Jane stated, folding her arms across her chest.

"Jane Foster will work on the project or I will take the tesseract back to Asgard immediately." Thor insisted.

"Fine." Tony grumbled as Jane wandered over to the lab. "And for the record, I was not an arms dealer. I just owned a company that sold a few weapons."

"A few weapons," Rhodey snickered from the corner. "He supplied the entire army for years."

Tony let out a loud sigh and turned around to look at his best friend. "What are you doing...no. You know what, where's Pepper? Every since she moved in, the security around here has really gone downhill. Is there anybody else here that isn't in the Avengers program?"

Sam Wilson raised his hand and waved at Tony. "Hey, Stark. Steve invited me."

"Of course he did."

"And Darcy is probably going to come back when her class is over. She usually helps me organize my charts and data." Jane added.

"Naturally."

"Tony, this isn't just your house anymore. This is the Avengers Tower." Steve reminded Tony.

"They're not Avengers."

"I could be." Sam objected indignantly.

"But you aren't." Tony bickered.

"Tony. Sam." Steve interrupted sternly. "This is the Avengers Tower. Guests of the Avengers - any of them - are welcome."

Tony rolled his eyes. "When did we make that rule?"

"Just now."

"Ah, Tony. We only have about two days and thirteen hours left to fit the tesseract's mainframe into one of your suits. Do you really want to spend that time arguing with Steve?" Bruce asked quietly.

"No." Tony allowed, his jaw tensing slightly. "But this isn't over Wilson, do you hear me?"

"Loud and clear, Stark." Sam grinned. Tony smirked back before following Bruce and Jane towards the lab.

"He seems to be doing a lot better these days." Natasha remarked as they watched him through the glass walls of the tower.

"Yeah," Steve agreed thoughtfully, "I think that spending time with Dr. Banner has helped him work through some of the things that happened in New York."

"I like to think that I might've had something to do with it, too." Pepper remarked as she walked through the front door.

"Oh, uh, no, yeah, you've definitely done a lot too, I was just saying…"

Pepper laughed. "It's okay, Steve. I know what you meant. Having you all close by has really helped him. He still has nightmares every once in a while, but he's working through it. I think that trip to Asgard was a great idea, Thor." Thor beamed at Pepper's recognition.

"I think I might have helped, too." Sam reminded the rest of the room loudly. "He joined my PTSD group. I coached him through twenty panic attacks. Most of them were at three in the damn morning."

"No one likes a glory hound, Sam." Steve taunted, casting Sam a lopsided grin.

"Really? That's rich coming from you, Captain Self-Righteous. Remind me again, who gave a ten minute speech to S.H.I.E.L.D. instead of just running in there and shooting up the bad guys in the first place?" Sam countered, punching Steve's shoulder.

"Oh, yeah. I never got to hear the full story of what happened when you guys attacked S.H.I.E.L.D. Every time Nat tries to tell me, she always ends up saying 'you just have to hear Steve tell it'. So what happened in D.C., Rogers?" Clint asked, leaning back against the couch and watching Steve expectantly.

Steve glared at Natasha. Natasha just smiled back at him.

"It wasn't really that good of a speech, I just said -"

"No, I want the whole story. Not just the speech." Clint argued.

"Please tell him where you hid the flash drive. That's my absolute favorite part of the entire story." Natasha laughed.

Steve scowled. "Fine, but only if Thor finally tells us what the hell happened up on Asgard."

Tony's head popped out of the lab. "Steve Rogers, such language from an American hero!"

"Can it, Stark." Steve grumbled, rolling his eyes.

"I just want to make sure that the Star Spangled Man With a Plan is being the great man that my dad knew he could be." Tony called before returning to the lab.

"Asshole." Steve muttered under his breath.

"Do you kiss your mother with that mouth?" Fury taunted.

"You can't say that to him, he's an orphan!" Sam objected in a scandalized tone.

Steve tried to scowl but wound up laughing. It was difficult to get annoyed by everyone's teasing when it felt so much like belonging to a family. For the first time in sixty years, Steve felt like he was home. He just wished that Bucky was there to enjoy it with him.

"Hey, hey. I think we're getting distracted. Rogers still has to tell me about his Hell Week. Especially the part involving hiding the flash drive." Clint reminded everyone with an amused grin.

"Hell Week?" Steve echoed curiously. Realizing that there was likely going to be yet another conversation before he heard the flash drive story, Clint groaned and slumped in his seat.

"Yes, Hell Week. I named it myself. I thought that it was pretty fitting for the week that S.H.I.E.L.D. became a war zone, Thor brought more aliens to Earth, and Tony stopped the president from getting blown to hell at a dock." Fury explained.

"I did not bring Malekith to Earth. He sought to bring the universe as we know it to complete darkness. The convergence made staying on Asgard difficult." Thor objected. Steve looked at the demigod as though he had grown five heads.

"Aliens were here again?" He demanded.

"Yeah, man. You didn't know? Even I knew." Sam said.

"How did you know?"

"I own a TV."

Steve let out a loud sigh. "Why didn't you tell us when it was happening?"

"I would've, but we didn't exactly have a lot of time for conversation that week. I just assumed that you knew. Nat did." Sam responded. Steve turned to look at Natasha. Natasha smiled at him awkwardly.

"I think that I'm going to check on something outside. You know, the air quality in New York is just…" She slipped out of the room before fully explaining her ridiculous excuse. Steve glared after her.

"Go on, then. Let's hear the flash drive story." Clint prompted for the umpteenth thing.

Steve let out an annoyed huff. "Fine. Look, I don't have as much experience with espionage as you and Nat do, so when Fury gave me a flash drive and told me to keep it safe, I didn't know what to do with it. I was in the hospital, I was surrounded by Hydra agents, and there was nowhere to go. The only thing nearby was a vending machine and it looked like a flash drive would be a subtle thing to hide behind a few sticks of gum…"

By the time Steve finished justifying hiding a top secret flash drive in a public vending machine, the group was roaring with laughter. Even Rhodey, who tended to side with Steve, couldn't help but laugh. Steve's face was bright red. In an effort to save some face, he then demanded that Thor tell the entire story of his Hell Week experience.

So it went for the next hour or so. Thor shared his Hell Week story, Steve shared a bit more of his, and Pepper shared the parts of Tony's that Tony had conveniently left out. By the time they finished, everybody's faces were flushed with laughter. It seemed strange for them to bond over things that normal people might consider tragic, but then, they had never been normal people. That was why they were able to tolerate each others' company as well as they did. That was why they had formed their own little abnormal family.

"Think they're done up there?" Rhodey wondered, glancing up at where Tony, Bruce, and Jane were still struggling with one of Tony's suits. "I want to ask Jane about what it was like chasing Malekith all over England in rainboots."

Before anyone could even think about disturbing the scientists at work, Natasha burst into the room. Her face was ruddy, her breathing was short and choppy, and her eyes were frenzied. Steve and Clint immediately leapt out of their seats.

"Guys. We've got a problem."